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Next generation bootlegs

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I was thinking (and I'm sure some other people may have thought this already), would it be possible to recreate the original theatrical versions from the new dvds?
Some parts would be easy, like removing the Jabba and Han scene from ANH, others may be harder.
The biggest problem would be parts where new scenes would be removed and original scenes would need to be inserted, like han and greedo in the cantina. Sure you could just cut in maybe 1 second of film at the bit where the actual shot takes place, but would the difference in quality make it look horrible when you do this? Also on the lines of quality you'd probably need to redub the stromtrooper's and bobba's voices with the 5.1 soundtrack from the anamorphic dvds.

Now I'm not very good at editing myself so I could be way off on this, but if it's possible with decent results then we can have all the benefits of the cleaned up video, sound and effects without the horrible changes.

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I was just thinking maybe I could actually do this myself.
After the official DVDs come out maybe I will buy them, to do this. There's still the problem with parts of lower quality standing out however, and I haven't yet seen the quality of the bootleg dvds (however I hope to soon), so I'm not sure how pronounced it will be.

The main idea I'm having is to make a sort of hybrid between the 3 different versions. Basically keep the cleaned up picture and sound quality, and the better effects (like CG ships and improved lightsabers), but remove the horrible changes like Han shooting first and the Han and Jabba scene.
However I think I'll keep some things from the SE, like the new wampa scene.
A definite change would be when R2 is eaten on Dagobah, Luke says "You're lucky you don't taste very good", which I think is better than in the SE where he says "You're lucky to get out of there."
Sure, I could have stayed in the past. I could have even been king. But in my own way, I am king.
Hail to the king, baby.
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yeah, a lot of people have bandied about this idea. you definitely should try it. i think i will too. according to his posts in the bootleg dvd thread, laserman is a professional video editor and has plans to do this after he finishes making an archival theatrical version from the lasers. he's going through frame by frame and cleaning up the video to make perfect copies to be buned in dvd-9. it should be damned sweet. then he's threatened to do a restored version from the specialer edition dvds coming out in september. but my advice is: have fun and try it.

EDIT: spelling

huzzah for archival THEATRICAL OT!!!
it is our duty to preserve star wars history...

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I think that this is almost the same project that...... DOH i forgot who was gonna do it but someone here was gonna do this more or less....

I know that MagnoliFan is going to be using them in is Trilogy Edits

“My skill are no longer as Mad as the once were” RiK

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Greetings. Been lurking a while, usually post at TFN... anyway, I love this site for helping me appreciate O-OT bootlegs so I'll always have the version of SW I grew up with, even though I'll buy and love the official DVDs. I thought I'd share an image quality comparison I put together. Obviously a "restored" O-OT made from the official DVDs would be compelling, though I doubt it'll be possible to have uniform image quality when restoring non-SE/DVD footage given the lack of good source material. No pre-DVD video source is even remotely close to the official DVDs' image quality. Without Lucasfilm's cooperation the only hope would be to find someone with O-OT film prints and the ability to digitize and restore them.

Anyway... this comparison obviously altered its content by each example being resized to the same dimensions and additionally compressed to jpeg, but all four suffered equally so it's still an OK comparison.

Bandwidth saving thumbnail to catch the eye:

Click here for the real image.
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Holy shit...I am now officially definitely getting the official DVDs for the sole reason that they look extremely kick-ass...

And if someone had an original film print and could restore, digitize, and burn it I'd say forget about using the DVD at all and just use that original print. I didn't want pay money for a bootleg set ripped from a laserdisc or something like that because I figured there are so many different versions how the hell am I gonna pick one without risking a serious waste of $$$, so I downloaded the anamorphic set. But if a set was made from original film prints of all three original movies (preferably the 35mm re-release run 1981 Star Wars print, the 35mm original-run Empire print, and the 1983 original-run Jedi print) I would gladly shell out whatever is needed. And if there was a 1977 original-run Star Wars print that would be nice to have as an alternate, but I'd rather have the 81 A NEW HOPE print to better fit with the other three, not to mention it would be easier to find probably. God would that be an awesome day.
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Hmmm, this is going to be just as hard as I imagined then.
Oh well, it's still probably worth a shot, and the audio will be more edited then the video so thats a good thing.
The only thing now is to hope that Laserman does a good job cleaning up the video. If not, then I guess it might have to be a choice between horrible small drops in quality, or horrible big scene changes.
Sure, I could have stayed in the past. I could have even been king. But in my own way, I am king.
Hail to the king, baby.